Virtual Event: Florence Williams

presenting

Heartbreak:
A Personal and Scientific Journey

in conversation with CLAIRE DEDERER

Date

Feb
7
Monday
February 7, 2022
7:00 PM ET

Location

Join our online event (or pre-register) via the link in the event description.

Tickets

Free - $5 contribution suggested at registration

Harvard Book Store's virtual event series welcomes FLORENCE WILLIAMS—the award-winning author of Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History and The Nature Fix—for a discussion of her latest book, Heartbreak: A Personal and Scientific Journey. She will be joined in conversation by CLAIRE DEDERER, the New York Times bestselling author of Love and Trouble and Poser

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About Heartbreak

When her twenty-five-year marriage unexpectedly falls apart, journalist Florence Williams expects the loss to hurt. What she doesn’t expect is that she’ll end up in the hospital, examining close-up the way our cells listen to loneliness. She travels to the frontiers of the science of “social pain” to learn why heartbreak hurts so much and why so much of the conventional wisdom about it is wrong.

Searching for insight as well as personal strategies to game her way back to health, Williams tests her blood for genetic markers of grief, undergoes electrical shocks in a laboratory while looking at pictures of her ex, and ventures to the wilderness in search of awe as an antidote to loneliness. For readers of Wild and Lab Girl, Heartbreak is a remarkable merging of science and self-discovery that will change the way we think about loneliness, health, and what it means to fall in and out of love.

Praise for Heartbreak

"This surprisingly frank and funny book is what happens when a formidable science journalist turns her powers of observation and inquiry on her own broken heart." —Bonnie Tsui, author of Why We Swim

"What a powerful book. Williams captures the heartache of divorce and the crooked road back to living. Colorful, imaginative and poignant—Heartbreak tells a gripping story of courage, sex, and adventure packed with all the newest hard science on romance and attachment. I’ve studied love for over 40 years and I was taking notes. It’s a magnificent, wise, and remarkable read!" —Helen Fisher, author of The Anatomy of Love

"Heartbreak by Florence Williams is a graceful account of losing a marriage and finding another way of being. With vulnerability and veracity, Williams seeks various modes of understanding the physicality of loss. Whoever has felt the blistering heat of a broken heart will thank Florence Williams for a clear moving river of discoveries." —Terry Tempest Williams, author of Erosion

Claire Dederer
Claire Dederer

Claire Dederer

Claire Dederer is the New York Times bestselling author of two critically acclaimed memoirs: Love and Trouble and Poser, which was translated into 11 languages, optioned for television, and adapted for the stage. Dederer is at work on Monsters, a nonfiction book investigating good art made by bad people, forthcoming from Knopf. Dederer is a long-time contributor to the New York Times. Her essays, criticism, and reviews have also appeared in The Paris Review, The Atlantic, The Nation, Vogue, and many other publications.

Florence Williams
Florence Williams

Florence Williams

Florence Williams is the author of Breasts, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and The Nature Fix. A contributing editor at Outside Magazine, her writing has appeared in the New York Times, National Geographic, and many other outlets.

Join our online event (or pre-register) via the link in the event description.
Event Series: Virtual Event Series

Harvard Book Store’s award-winning event series continues online! Named "Best of Boston: 2020 Best Virtual Author Series" and "2021 Best Virtual Author Series" by Boston magazine.

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